Should writers depend upon the Christmas shopping season?

As I write this, the entire retail world of the United States, or a good percent of it, is preparing for the Christmas shopping season. The biggest retail shopping days of the year, such as Black Friday, are rapidly approaching. Retailers often depend upon the Christmas shopping season to survive--the bulk of their business is done during Christmas; and the rest of the year, they are lucky to make enourgh to keep the lights on.

And this goes beyond the retail stores. The last restaurant chain I worked for, Renzios (a Greek shopping mall type restaurant), did excellent sales during the Christmas season (captive audience situation)--yet also managed to stay in the black for the rest of the year.

Yet that was not true of all of their locations. For instance, the location that I worked for. My slowest time of the year was the Christmas season. I used to send my employees to other locations (one, so that they could get extra hours; two, to save on my labor costs). There was exception originally, and that was the two nights of the Parade of Lights--but when the Pavilions on 16th Street Mall was built, that all changed and the Parade of Lights became two of my slowest days.

So all this is in the back of my mind as I shift to my new profession--writing ebooks and e-articles--and face my first full Christmas season as a writer.

Should I place a lot of weight on the Christmas season?

My immediate gut reaction is "no."

My logic being that: One, I do not control anything beyond my own keyboard; and Two, if I am not ready for Christmas already--well, it is too late.

Now, this is not saying that there is no possibility of getting some extra sales this holiday season. But honestly, how many people buy other people ebooks for the holidays? I have yet to see solid numbers to answer that question.

As a writer, my business model is a year-round business. Any extra sales I make during Christmas have to be divided and budgeted to support the rest of the year. My Christmas season campaign is actually a writing campaign for a couple of books that will not be released until next year (if ever--there is always a chance that they will turn out to be pure trash and never released).

When you work on projects that require months to complete...the excitement of Christmas sprees take a backseat. Even a simple article can be in the pipeline for months, if not years. (Honest truth, I once got paid two years after submission for a $25 dollar article.) My tasks as a writer are to slowly build up my stock of books and articles, and my readership (audience), over the course of years. A seasonal event like the Christmas shopping season is just a speed bump at best, a distraction at worst.

It would be nice to get a bump in ebook sales if it happens, but I am not banking on it. And I do not think that any writer should.

[And realistically, I still do not have that much stock up--and what I do have up is short stories. I have yet to get a finished novel up. And so it goes.]

Getting ready for NaNoWriMo

So I decided to do NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) again this year. Nanowrimo is a trip into insanity--what?! no?!--where writers try to write a fifty thousand word novel (first draft) in the space of thirty days.

[To learn more about National Novel Writing Month, check out the Nanowrimo website.]

This will be my sixth attempt to accomplish this task. This attempt will be the first time that I have tried to do it without those pesky college classes also being involved. Maybe the sixth time will be the charm. (Yes, I have five unfinished novels and a pile of term papers to show for the previous attempts.)

I thought about not doing Nanowrimo this year, and devote my time to writing short erotica stories instead--but considering that I really need to build up my stock as a writer and need to diversify, I just as well do it. Besides, with the Christmas season approaching and the fact that nothing that I put this quarter is going to affect this year's income, this is as good as any time to work on an urban fantasy novel.

So how am I getting ready? I am thinking about the setting that I plan on using for my story (think James Bond meets Harry Potter), and listening to James Bond soundtracks. And yes, this is more preparation than I have ever done for the Nanowrimo.

Back to the past

Mitt Romney wants us to go back to the good old days.

One thing I have noticed about people is that they really want to go back to the good old days when America was king of the hill.

And this includes Mitt Romney, who as President Barack Obama noted, "Governor, when it comes to our foreign policy you seem to want the policies of the 1980s, just like you want to import the social policies of the 1950s and the economic policies of the 1920s." And then there was the Navy and military comment where Romney complained about the number of Navy ships we have, as well as our low number of airplanes--obviously the numbers are the only thing that matters to Romney, not the fact that current technology can blow anything from 1916 and 1947 right out of the water. As Obama noted, "We also have fewer horses and bayonets because the nature of our military has changed."

So what does this have to do with writing, besides the fact that the Republicans are most likely to make my bread and butter writing illegal (because no one should be reading erotica)--well, it reminds me of something else.

There are a whole bunch of people who seem to think that the writing business is still the same writing business of the 1950s. I am amazed at the number of blogs and articles that I read that are focused on finding an agent or getting a legacy publishing contract.

We have moved away from paper publishing and legacy publishing. Today, writing has changed. Today, writers are writing ebooks, and are successfully making livings while being self-published.

Yet we are still getting writing advice that sounds more suitable for the 1950s. And trust me, I am going to scream the next time someone suggests that I send something to a legacy publisher...because I could get an advance on my royalities.

I have actually consider digging through some old writing magazines and books, and talking about how the advice does not necessarily hold true today; this is provided that people quit repeating the same advice on the internet (unlikely, right?).

But I am not sure that anyone would read such a series...because it involves dealing with things as they are in the present, and how they might change in the future. We are not supposed to embrace change. We are supposed to be putting the genie back into the bottle--because everything was so much better in the good old days.

The biggest hazard to my writing business

Twice in this past month, I have been reminded that the biggest hazard to my business as a writer is myself. To be more precise, it is my mental programming that is the problem. And it is something that I really need to remember.

What brought on the reminder that I have some shoddy mental programming (think mental virus and malware) was the fact that I have spiraled down into two very bad mental modes in the last thirty days--mental modes that have taken me over a week apiece to crawl out of. And both were brought on by stray comments by people who, well, really do not understand the current state of my business. (In fact, I am sure that neither one knows a damn thing about my business.)

The first mental mode was a nice deep depression. The second mode, well, I am going to use the term "violence and suicide" to describe it--it is something that I think my relatives will instantly understand because we all have it to varying degrees.

Both modes were brought about because someone made a random comment about the fact that perhaps because of the lack of income I am making as a writer that perhaps I should be looking for a regular job.

Now, my lack of income as a writer can be explained away by the fact that my business basically restarted just a year ago. While I have been freelancing off and on since 1984, I didn't start self-publishing (ebooks) until just a year ago. Yes, by that mark, my business is just a year old. And most of that first year, I was still attending the University of Colorado at Denver...my business was more of a back burner thing than it was a front line priority.

But the important part, which is being overlooked, is that it is doing better than I have ever done as a writer previous to this point. I am actually selling ebooks--not at a quick pace, but enourgh that I can see that what I need the most is more stock to sell.

And more stock to sell is exactly what I would lose if I throw in the towel at this point in time. Oh, I can still hack out the occasional short story, but what I really need is a novel or two, and some other major projects. Because all I currently have up are articles and short stories--I do not have anything longer than that.

Now, my regular readers know the reason why I will not be able to get anything longer up--the only work that I have experience in is restaurant and retail work--twenty years worth (oh, and a college newspaper job--but I did not major in journalism). The type of work that I am qualified for tends to be you are overworked and underpaid, and on call 24/7. Basically, they work you until you are too exhausted to do anything up, and ensure that you have to work until the day you die. (And they say that slavery is a thing of the past.)

I know logically that I am better off just taking the next few months to work on bigger projects (in fact, my production schedule is completely full until February...if not later). But emotionally, my mental programming says that I should listen to the bad advice and go back to flipping burgers...because short term money issues trump all long term plans, no matter how sound the long term plans are.

And I know that I am prone to walking away from my writing even in the best of times. Before I got into restaurant management, I had actually started to get hand-written rejection slips. The professional writers in the room will know what that means--I managed to convince some editors that I was going to be a real writer some day.

What did I do? Oh, I quit writing for several years. It was only after spending some time as a restaurant manager that I picked up the pen again. And one could argue that I stepped away from my writing again while I was in college. My venturing into ebooks was caused by the fact that I lost my college newspaper job, and my school schedule was not conductive to burger flipping, plus the fact that one of my friends was doing good in a market that I have been doing in print since 1984.

So I know that I have to be cautious about my own mental state. Especially now that my business has started to actually work for me. At the moment, provided that nothing major goes wrong, such as ebooks becoming illegal or something like that, my writing income will be better than any of my previous years...and that is even if I do not write another word. This is not the time that I should be thinking about stepping away from the table--at this point in time, I should be rolling up my sleeves for a major campaign.

We will see if my mental programming allows me to do so or not. At this point in time, I am not making any sudden bets. But then again, I am aware of my little mental programming problem...and knowing is half the battle, right?

Are you ready for Xmas?

Kitty is not yet ready for Xmas.

A friend of mine posted on Facebook that she just saw Christmas lights being put up at her local shopping mall (guess Halloween and Thanksgiving got cancelled). And while it makes me freak out, years of management tells me that it makes sense from the viewpoint of the shopping mall.

First, Halloween and Thanksgiving are not big retail holidays.

Second, this year has really sucked been slow for retail stores.

Third, most retail stores depend upon Christmas to put themselves in the black for the year. (Yes, your average retail store in mostly in the red for most of the year--it brings a whole new level of meaning to the term "black friday.")

Now, as writers, one would think that we would be above such things. No. No. No.

Today on Smashwords, I was reading Mark Coker's suggestions for when to get stuff into the system if we want to have our ebooks available in various outlets (Apple, etc.). And honestly, I thought he was being optimistic (his estimate assumes that everything goes correctly--I have been having lag times under another pen-name for Apple and Barnes & Noble to get my stuff into their systems).

Coming from the print market as I do, where you submitted your stuff like nine months before the holiday, I came up with my own deadline for the material that I want in the sytem before the Christmas shopping rush.

That deadline? Oh, it is Halloween. I figure that given the amount of stuff outside of my control that the only way that I can be sure that my stuff is up for sale by the start of the Christmas rush (which having done retail means the day after Thanksgiving) is to get it in before the end of the month.

I figure that anything that I do after the end of October may or may not get into the distribution network. And besides, I plan on doing the NaNoWriMo again this year, so that is additional reason for me to aim for Halloween as my Xmas deadline.

Not that I depend upon the Christmas rush to make my year...it is just that some extra sales would be nice to have, given the fact that I am about to have student loan payments about to start being due.

How is my business going? (Q3 2012)

Every once in awhile, I get asked the question, "How is your business doing?" or some variation, such as "How are ebooks working out for you?"

Now, at the moment, this question is actually hard to answer. To understand why, one must realize that my business underwent a couple of changes last year--and a major change this year.

One of the changes that happened last year was that I actually started to do a certain amount of photography and advertising for another business, Celtic Soul Jewelry and Pottery, my wife's pottery business. I have been doing photography for her off and on for several years, but it was for record keeping. The current set of photos are actually for sale purposes.

One of the things that changed my approach was the simple fact that I brought a better camera--something that I was required to have when I was still working for the school newspaper. The old camera was hers; this one is MINE. My wife and one of our friends have made the comment on occasion that it is like I was born with a camera in my hand.

The reason that my photography style had to change was the fact that she started selling pottery and jewelry online (after years of me saying that she should do so). But the change in style has meant that in the future I will be using several of my own photos as cover art.

It is only a matter of time before I start seriously freelancing on that front. And yes, my wife is paying me to do photography and advertising for her. Therefore, I have to consider that part of my current business model--and that is completely brand new.

The other change which happened last year was that I switched from the print market as a writer to the ebook market. This happened in October. It was such a major change that I consider my current writing business to be a new business, and not a continution of my print market efforts (which I started to submit to in 1985).

Now, as the writers who read this blog know, the ebook market is only about five years old, and really did not start picking up speed until 2010. The newness of the ebook market and my recent entry in it means that I am still trying to collect a full set of initial numbers to base my answer on...and my decisions.

(For the record, the section of the print market that I made the most money in was gutted by the internet--it is only now that the internet and ereaders have provided a replacement for that market.)

These two changes by themselves make it hard to figure out how my business is doing. Essentially, it is a new business. By the standard of my old freelance days, I doing better than I was. Unfortunately, the major change that happened just a few months ago makes it look like my business is doing really bad.

Basically, my business has became my sole source of income (outside of the occasional Tarot reading and other odd job).

During my time in college, I relied upon student loans to make ends met. But that is no longer an option for me. I graduated this spring with two Bachelor degrees: Hitory and Literary Studies. While I do intend to go back for a Masters in at least one of these subjects, it was decided that I am going to wait until my wife finishes her Masters in Education for the Linguistically Diverse (think ESL) before going back to school.

Now, let's be honest--the job market s***s, and unemployment will not drop to 7% until 2014 by the best estimates. So my degrees combined with twenty years of food service would get me a job in...food service, if I was lucky.

Therefore, the decision was made because of the job market and a strange bounce that one of my ebooks did (it is performing really well compared to the others) that I would focus on building my business until my re-entry into college (technically, it will be university).

Another factor that makes it hard to figure out how well my business is doing is the simple fact that I was burnt out terribly by the last two semesters (back to back capstone Senior Seminars). I had a hard time getting my act and cranking out the writing.

The cherry on top of all this doubt and non-informationis the fact that I am starting to do artwork, editing, and formating for other writers...and calling it publishing (because I am going to collect a percentage). And that is also completely new for me.

So really at the moment, I am incapable of answering the question of "How is your business going?" This quarter will be better than the last quarter (if my estimate is correct), as has been the last two quarters, and the next quarter should be better than this one. But that is about all I know until I spend some more time working at it.

Free for today only

Shakespeare's Monkey

Today (well technically until Friday September 14, 2012), you can get a free copy of my ebook Shakespeare's Monkey when you enter coupon code EX49A at the checkout. Why free today? Well, one of the stories contained in this volume was based on 9/11--apologizes to the dozen people that I blended together to create the characters (it was creative license)--and today is as good of a day to share that piece of fiction as any other.

(And yes to my editing friends, I do realize that the title is misspelled on the cover...it is going to get fixed as soon as I find a photoediting program that I am comfortable with.)